Design systems in production

The component library everyone can look at: designers, engineers, and increasingly the tools generating your UI. If your system isn't inspectable, it isn't enforceable.

Gets your primitives out of a Figma file and into a format both humans and machines can read. This is the prerequisite for everything else — AI can only follow a system it can consume.

The transform layer. One token source, every platform's format out the other end. Unglamorous and load-bearing.

The single highest-value check on this list. Catches the 2px shift and the not-quite-right grey on every pull request, mechanically, without anyone needing to notice.

Documentation and token pipelines together, which is the combination that survives not having a full-time design system maintainer.

The alternative if your documentation needs to sit closer to Figma than to code. Strong when the audience for the docs is mostly designers.

Not a dependency — components you copy into your repo and own. That ownership model is why it works so well as the substrate for generated UI.

The accessibility layer underneath most modern component libraries. Keyboard behaviour and focus management you'd otherwise get subtly wrong.

One of the few public systems documented well enough to learn from. Read how they write usage guidance, not just what components they have.

Worth knowing even if you never ship Material — the token architecture and adaptive guidance are the most thoroughly worked-through in public.